Slant of Anonymity
by kerricarri
Summary: Earth was unpleasant and its cities frightened her. The sights and smells and people were strange, and yet she saves one of them. Raven's first act of kindness, and she hardly knows why. And then she met him, the one named Victor.
1. Grievances

There is going to be no romance. Timewise, this is a year before Episode 62: Go!, which is the team origins episode. I wanted to do something short and simple with Raven because there's this one particular canon friendship that I adore.

_Desperation, Says the Villain_ is on hold and the next chapter of _Gimmick's Vice_ is still being worked on. I needed a breather so I did this fic, which is completely Hive Five unrelated. I also wanted to try my hand at Raven's possible first impressions of Earth. AU-esque, obviously.

* * *

When she arrived from Azarath, everything was so strange and new to her. The clothes they wore. The people she saw. The smells.

Azar, this world smelled. A horrible stink ever present, she could hardly breathe. Her first breath made her cough, then hack. Tears had formed, real human tears from some invisible irritant or another, and she felt dirt for the first time because she'd fallen into a mound. Groping, weak, outstretched hands, she blindly sought some relief or another, but with every pant she took the process became easier. Her fingers had clawed into soft earth and she'd tainted her skin with the mud of this world.

For a time, a long time, she laid there, utterly exhausted and in bafflement to how humans managed to do this repeatedly in the span of mere minutes. She couldn't imagine living her whole life on a planet where the very air she breathed wheezed and ripped through her chest and could lead to potential harm towards her person. She couldn't imagine proceeding under this masochistic agony.

She no longer coughed after that, her innate magic soothing her spiking, clawing throat pains for her and letting the experience sink into her muscles as a memory. It didn't mean she was eager to have another repeat episode, though, which was why she stayed away from cities for a time after that.

She remembered how desperately, irrevocably afraid she was when she first came to this earth. It wasn't even the constraining air that greeted her arrival. It was the people. It was the sounds, voices. Sights.

It was a regrettable bout of insanity that had visited her when she decided to see for herself what a 'city' entailed.

The first thing she noticed was the unimaginable and overwhelming usage of stone. Not to mention, uncreative. But their buildings towered over her! Not naturally, comfortingly, or even soothingly like the structures of Azarath, but here...

Windows warped and flickered the images reflected upon them. Alien. Huge, towering windows. Grotesquely so. Tiny, private ones—homes, and...skyscrapers? There were tens of many floors in each one of them, she'd read, but many more people inside. Hardly believing what she was perceiving, she walked among the locals in a daze, too taken in by the rushing, busy, _thriving _quality of the streets to hide. The sun was hot. Distasteful, even, and made her perspire in the most uncomfortable of ways, but she persevered. She could not stop.

She walked. In Azarath, she hated how hallow her steps sounded in the almost sterile silence, how quietly she had to force herself to move, if only to bring no attention onto herself. How cautiously she skulked...

On earth, the first thing she did in a city was simply to enjoy the sensation. Here, nothing echoed but the screeching noises of life—a city was all open spaces and high, far, and wide. Dizzying pathways. The smell was less than desirable, but the tastes...so attune to her surroundings and so heightened were her senses that she could taste. The air? Perhaps. She daren't touch a single dish, no matter how much the populace seemed to favor these vendors, these men and women of cuisine.

People ate here so freely, she was almost tempted to join them herself.

Food. Food was to be enjoyed here. Consumed with a fervor spurred on by hunger...? No abstinence or reserve—one must eat if one was hungry. But they ate with a relish? Was that what food was? A treat?

Seaside restaurants. She found it counterproductive, almost sick in a way. Did they not empty into their harbors pollutants and a variety of other things she daren't name? They caught fish. Fish, of all things! How freely these people raped the seas...how happily.

There were no open waters in Azarath. They...they never moved. Suspended. Not here. Not in harbors of seaside restaurants, not in this lavish, decadent life where everything was strange and new and bursting forth vitality and vigor.

Not Azarath. Nothing at all like her home. Her mother's homeland...frightened her.

She never saw moving water before in such a size and expanse before, but Earth seemed to delight in such surprises. Her waters were frozen and still. Sterile. Calm, if drunk and consumed. Controlled. Blue. Water was a commodity, a fact of life. It was simply there, existing, and her people never paid much heed to it...

Blues. Greens. Clears. Glinting brilliance, the sun was no enemy here. Glittering. Water, she gasped. Water was _alive_ here.

Beautiful.

Brine. Kelp. Ships. There was a suppressing layer of _something_ that tasted sharp. Unpleasant. Her tongue cried. _Salt_, she eventually identified.

Why was there salt? Why were there kelp and ships and swimmers and birds? People never swam in Azarath—it was unheard of. Ridiculous.

Her clothes were latched onto her. Like the transgalactic leeches she'd read in her textbook. Heavy and clenching, every time she moved it was uncomfortable and she couldn't understand what she wanted. It was so _hot_. What did one do then? She saw people in the water and men had no clothes on. Disgusting free voyeuristic displays, she carefully averted her eyes away. And she wanted to join them? Absurd, yet—

Naked? She looked up, then paused when she saw another walk on by. Not naked. Pants. Thin and translucent and clinging. A man. Grotesquely fat, belly flopping over, but he was happy. His eyes were crinkled. Nobody back home crinkled like that. Children. There were children at his heels, and some had his hands in theirs and they all looked so _happy_.

She looked away, not understanding why her chest tightened the way it did, why it clenched in a peculiar way. She couldn't help but peek in the corner of her eye how the happy, fat man led his happy, follower children into the water. Grains danced behind them and some caught on the wind, but most fell. They pricked at her skin and stuck to her suit. More discomfort. She shifted and tried to rub them off, but they stayed. Stubbornly.

Crying. Her head snapped up, and an instinctive, jolt reaction to the sight came. Swamped her. Overwhelming.

_Blood_. She knew about blood, how it was life's liquid. How easily it gushed in her arms, legs, head, and body. How...red it was. Her studies could never have described their sheer _crimson_. Tinged with pepper grains. Something lurched in her, then, and she knew it must have pained the little girl more to have them stuck in her wound than to have them without. An instinctual knowledge, perhaps, but more how she clutched and screamed at the redness, rubbing grit in.

People rushed forward and she held back in wonderment at the panic she saw in their faces.

No one did anything. Impotent, stupid; why gather if nothing was to be done? The man was crying. The happy, fat man who was happy no longer.

Anguish. She knew that expression well.

There was something lethargic about the scene. She could see the people and she could see their mouths flap, open and closed, but there was a roar in her ears. She couldn't understand it, but a pressure was building up and up and she nearly toppled over from its sheer weight and—!

She stumbled forward.

...These people were doing nothing?!

Falling was a sensation she never wanted to repeat again. Well, she fell forward and she fell fast, but instead of hitting the ground...

She lunged. She was lunging for that crowd of people, with their horrified faces and bared skin. Black, red, white skin—it didn't matter. She stood out, sickly pale, as she flew forwards, forwards...

Confusion. They were confused, but she was also confused to no degree. Gentle now, give her here and _Won't you listen to my fears_?

No more death. No more _blood_. She had enough.

_Heal_, something whispered deep within her. _Heal_...!

The girl gave a sudden heave, back arching and bending in an unnatural way and the people reared back, alternatively confused and horrified and terrible fear and horror spiked through her empathy and—

And then she healed. Blood went out and in. Grains fell away. The wound closed up, visibly, before their astonished eyes.

Witch, she was waiting to hear. _Witch_, they should've called her.

Blaring lights. The most annoying of sounds, right in her ears. Din with wind rushing together in a meaningless stream of babble. Men in uniform. Men with practiced, stoic _worry_ scrawled all over their faces if one only knew where to look, and she knew where to look.

It was the expression of a medic, their only tool to keep sane. Closed themselves off to pain this way—a slither of thought—but no matter how hard she tried to do the same, to try and tamp down on her emotions, they still wanted to come out...Death made her want to cry forth unreasonable tears. She felt stoic, too, after awhile. Just like these men.

Medics. _Healers_.

She'd taken their job.

And they were...amazed? Everyone was. Every last one of them.

Hero, she heard some whisper. Heroine, she heard others correct.

_...Superhero_, she heard everybody say.

The happy, fat man was...staring at her. In a way that made her want to back away, but he never gave her opportunity to. He clasped her hands and murmured her thanks said so raw it hit her—_she'd done good_.

The little girl opened her eyes and smiled.

_I feel good_! the little girl said, and the phrase stuck with her.

_Good_.

_I feel...strange_?

And after that all she felt were eyes on her, appraising glances, and it unnerved her. Desperately wanting to escape, she fled, but the people kept _cheering_ and...and—

She was confused. Why did they cheer for a thief who stole their jobs? Had they not have seen the men in white? Had they not have stood there and saw for themselves how their own actions could have saved the little girl?

Why were they so eager to label her as a hero? They knew nothing about her! She was no hero, she was—

She was bad, right? Someone awful. Someone undeserving of such vitality and life and vigor. She should be shunned and be done away with because she had no worth, no goodness. She wasn't a super whatever or someone to cheer for. She was...she was...!

Wanting to hide, she crouched behind a wall and curled legs inward. Dusk was falling and there were still people around, but perhaps they'd forgotten the events of the afternoon. Perhaps they'd already forgotten about her.

It was for the best. She tried to convince herself of that. It didn't work.

She stared at brick rows miserably, wondering where she was going to sleep, live, eat, _breathe_.

And it even smelled horrible here and she didn't know why. Filth. At least the sheer height of these buildings nearly blocked out the skies, but something twisted acid in her gut and she'd never known _garbage_ before...litter...filth. Her suit sullied, her hair mussed, she must have looked a sight—pathetic, dirty, and lost.

That unidentifiable puddle of murky grit in the corner.

Shivering, she huddled within herself, but it was still so _cold_—

"...Mind telling me why a girl like you's sleeping in the rain?"

Night had fallen. She'd woken up with a start and staring into such an alien and strange face, she balked.

She hadn't noticed the rain. She must have looked pathetic.

She must have looked sad. He seemed indecisive, then determined. Crouching down beside her cringing form, he shrugged off his coat, revealing a huge sweatshirt outlined frame, and then did something odd.

Tight. Compressed. But warm. Soft. And the smell...

_Comfort_? She felt eyes drift shut, weary and exhausted, and she couldn't fall back asleep. Nevertheless, she snuggled close into the folds that enveloped her, hugging her senses and keeping her so terribly warm.

He sat up against the wall next to her, sounding bemused. "Why're you at a dumpster alley, anyway, girl? Don't you have a home to go back to?" The strange man's face contorted with _something_, but it was not malicious. She hurriedly shut peeking eyes closed when he glanced at her. "Did you run away, too?" His voice was low. Soothing. Coaxing.

Sad.

_Angry_.

Overwhelmed, she scooted back away from him, never noticing his flinch. "W-why...why are you unhappy?"

His dark expression lightened in his confusion. "What? Oh, I see, it's because you think I'm a runaway."

"I am not lost," she said. "I have not run from anywhere."

Now, mirth. Fascinated, she stared. "You can't seriously be telling the truth. I saw you run from the beach faster than people could snap up your photograph. It was cute."

"Cute?" she said.

"Why d'ya look cute? I don't know, man, but you were adorable when you were sleep—aw, crap. Don't take it the wrong way! I ain't a pedo, okay?"

She blinked up at him, lost.

There was this frustrated noise _thing_ he gave in the back of his throat. "Forget it, kid. I just wanted a rest stop before I plowed through the rain again, and then I saw ya laying there. I was worried if you needed help or something."

Sharp, reprehending affront. A quiet retort? "I am not a child."

"How old are ya then? You look like you're not even in the double digits yet."

"I am of fourteen years. _Not_ a child."

He gave a low whistle, shaking his head. "Damn, girl. You don't look it."

"And you? How shall I perceive your age? You are old."

"None of that now," he said, features again twisting with something. "I may be your senior, but I'm not that old. Next thing ya'll know, I'll be addressed as 'sir,' or something terrible like that."

"Age?"

"I'm seventeen. A high school kid, yeah? But it feels like I've just started. Not that it matters anymore."

"Schooling is important," she whispered. "You gain knowledge. You cannot get hurt."

He tensed. "Wanna bet."

"...Where I am from, I have education from a single tutor." Her shoulders drooped. "You are angry at me. I can feel it. I am sorry."

"Nah. Not at you, it's just..."

"Just?"

"I'm a monster." He sounded rough, pained. Minute tightenings of his face, clenching of fists, he looked straight ahead of him and glared. "I can't ever go back. Not for comfort, not for food or shelter. Not even for my old man. I don't belong there. I don't belong anywhere."

"And you are...not happy."

"Yeah." From the corner of her eye, she saw his lips twist even when his head was bowed and shadowed. "I can't have a life. I look like a freak. If people saw me out there in the streets, they would—well, it wouldn't be good."

Something stabbed at her. An agonizing, bubbling sensation that made her nearly lurch forward, nearly turned her innards inside out. His anger gave way immediately to anguish.

Familiar. Not unlike the happy, fat man. Not unlike her.

He was so sad. It was what broke through to her, finally, made her voice waver but be strong. "Whatever problems you may deal with, they matter little when you are kind."

He snorted, and she wanted to recoil. "Yeah. Kind. That's what they would call me, huh? Not happening. I'm not—"

"You are."

He stopped. "You're not doing so hot yourself right now, are you?"

Her voice was equally as cautious. "I am in similar circumstances as you, and...and I can feel your...emotions."

The pain of empathy, feeling otherworldly emotions foreign to her, emotions not even her own. It was the cruelest of abilities granted to her. She could see his startlement spike, feel his confusion. _He was so transparent. _Nothing at all like the monks of her planet.

"You a, uh...psychic or something?"

"No, but that is close. I can feel what you feel. I am not human," she said, and her voice came out oddly flat and empty. Deadpan. "Not fully."

The dark-skinned teenager looked at her and then broke out into a small smile. "I can't tell if that was sarcasm or the truth."

"It is the truth," she answered before she thought to answer, which had made her blurt it out in an unseemly manner, and he leaned back, chuckling.

"All right, all right, I see how it is. We're both strangers, hey, what can it hurt?"

She gave a pause, then turned towards him, new understanding in her hooded eyes. "Let us begin," she said.

"I told you about running away..." the hooded boy frowned, "but I haven't told you about why."

"...It is your greatest shame."

"Yeah. Something like that."

His features, or what she could see of them, were dark and she didn't want to pry. She never said stop, though, because he was working his jaw and she saw that this was hard. She stared at that tension, enthralled with how freely his emotions angrily swirled around him. He would be telling her his greatest secret, and who was she to turn him away in rejection?

It would be the cruelest thing she could achieve thus far with another human being.

It was also the first time she accepted that she could communicate with her mother's people. There was something stirring in her body, so faint and tantalizing it was bound to disappear, but she knew it wouldn't. Because it was growing.

Even now. Even as he talked. Even as she listened, it grew. That fervor that wanted their conversing to last—_I don't want to be alone_.

He stopped talking, and she laid a quick, furtive hand on his hand. "Don't—"

He flinched and she recoiled, but knew to go on. "Don't...it is yours alone. If you truly wish to show it to me, then I shall share the burden of your shame with you. But...don't," she said, "turn me away when I show mine."

The hand that had been outstretched, the one she had used to stop him, was gently grasped and the hand around hers tightened. Firmly. Strongly. Softly. He felt cold. Unnaturally so. Hard. "All right. All right, kid, but only as long as you do let me show you _mine_."

She didn't dare to look away, and her hold on his hand was gripped in response. Her voice never wavered, and her hooded eyes were intense. He was shaking. So was she. "Show me."

He obliged, flipping soggy wet, cottony hood back, and all shaking ceased.

With a rushing breath, she closed her eyes and parted tremulous lips to say, "You have been so alone." He may have looked like stone, but she couldn't stand it. How suddenly closed off this boy was. How suddenly too-cold, too-unfeeling. As a blind man would reach out desperately, so did she. Hands, trembling, grasped fabric to pull herself up and into his face and his eyes followed her progress without a word.

She stared plaintively into a mismatched pair and said, "Let me show you mine. I have not forsaken you," and grasped his face in hers and suddenly, suddenly...she felt so hurt.

There was a child. Through her, the stoic boy with mismatched face and blank eyes saw deeply in her and learned what memories really were.

Hurtful. The little girl lost was swallowed and enveloped and consumed, and that boy saw that he was not alone.

The emotions rose in a sharp crescendo and suddenly, suddenly, she was consumed and overwhelmed. Swimmingly deeply in a thousand impressions instantly, she felt her throat nearly collapse and give way to a crushing force, and she choked and clawed at it to no avail. It hurt. But he was in pain as well.

It ended. She closed her eyes and shuddered in the crevice of his neck and shoulder, and the memories ended. He closed his, too, overwhelmed by a grief that was not his. Surely not.

Yet he grieved. And in that astoundingly clear moment, he realized what she meant by being half-human and to bear gifts of shame that hung like effigies of unimaginable agony from her neck.

And he grieved. And that little girl lost held back a sob, and it caught in her throat. She could breathe again. Relief. Such sweet relief.

They opened their eyes and saw that they were not so different after all. They were the same, two brats of sulking rain, hidden away in a back alleyway in shame, they were the same.

And they didn't even know each other's name.

* * *

I am a profound fan of the CyRae friendship, not so much the pairing, but the intimacy I'm going for was hardly touched on in the show. This is probably at least a twoshot, as I've sketched out what happens next as there's supposed to be a timeskip of several months. I'm happy with the tone and this is my first try at a POV like this, but I imagine canon!Raven isn't as absent minded as this. I love the idea of a pre-team Raven, though.

The only reason Raven and Cyborg bothered at all with each other is because they felt safe in each other's anonymity. They think they'll never see each other again. Very unlikely.


	2. Learnt

The first thing I'm striving for in this fic is realism since Raven has never before lived on a planet like Earth and must survive on her own. The second thing I'm trying to accomplish is a natural progression of mentality; you may note that her POV's slightly changed.

The fic's not over yet, and this overwhelmed, child-like Raven is challenging me to write in a style I'd never written in before. It's fun, and I'm glad people seem to be enjoying it, too. I absolutely adore Cyborg, although I don't have an innate grasp on his character like I want to, which makes me sad.

* * *

She lifted its pages to her face and sniffed. A faint musky smell, dry and faded and aged. Solemn crinkling of yellowing paper. Particles of dust floating in the muted streaks of the afternoon sun. Foreign, yet home.

The antique store gave a little sigh as she pulled the book away. The shelves were suspended with an unnatural stillness lingering in the air. Tucking the prize underneath an absent arm, she lightly stepped away.

She turned, then stopped. A lock of hair fell into her eyes and she brushed errant strands from her face. A wizened old man with cracked leather for skin and pale, thin unsmiling lips was in her path. The aisle was small, and she didn't want to push him away. "I have done no wrong."

"I never said you were doing anything of the sort." For any other person, he would have had to tilt back his head to properly converse for he was short. She was short, too. They leveled eyes with each other.

"...We do this everyday, sir." It seemed only right to address him as such.

"You come here everyday."

Her grip on the tome tightened. "What of it?"

The old man glared. "Do you not have a home to go back to? No familial obligations? No foolish outings with teenaged young things?"

She could only shrug. "Your words, sir. It is apparent I am your only patron. I'd have thought you grateful."

"What sass." But his lips twitched. "Go on to the front, girl. I'll ring it up."

Ducking her head, she slid past him, navigating the maze of disheveled, mountainous columns of mismatched books until she made it to a door. Heavy and dignified and furbished with the smooth feel of aged wood, she pulled it open and slipped through, quiet as a mouse. She'd come from the back room. The old man came out chuckling from behind her. No one was around to have seen such an astonishing thing. His whole face was transformed, alight as he stared at her.

The door swung shut after them, a battered, gleaming plate nailed to the front. It proclaimed: EMPLOYEES ONLY, though she was sure no one crept in the storage room but the old man. She wondered whether his humor extended to novelties, too.

He didn't seem lonely, though. He felt perfectly content. The day was sweltering and the sun was hot. Too many people were swarming the boardwalks. She understood why he'd much prefer the comfort the shop. Most humans would've felt an inkling of boredom if they had to do the things this old man did every day. He was odd and she liked him.

Better to make peace with the one person like you than to shun him for habits she could've easily had herself.

The old man liked tea. She found she did, too.

A homely brew that fit right into the interiors of their quiet lives. As long as she didn't rustle pages too loudly or fiddle with the bookshelves too much, he was fine with her skulking. But she was more inclined towards creeping. She had to walk a certain way in order to serve him his brew. Otherwise, she'd spill. Dangerous, surely. No occasion for it yet, but there was a sense of apprehension of the day she would dribble something on the worn carpet below.

It was an unpleasant thought. She wasn't normally clumsy, but the austere grace the old man held himself made her feel very small.

Meanwhile, she learned to read.

Of course she already knew how. The monks of Azarath were thorough in their teachings and whatever else she needed to know, she learned from textbooks. Of worlds faraway. Of creatures from the tiniest of particles to the largest of galaxies. But it was a detached reading, very dry. The books the old man read, they looked dry as well. However...

She set the text down heavily onto the counter top, ignoring his glare. "I am sorry. It is heavy. How much?"

With a grunt, he pulled something from out under a cabinet. He slapped a second book down on top of her intended purchase and it was thin and slender without a distinct cover to it. Nondescript. Plain. Hardback, not paperback, but new. Familiar, unfortunately.

A frown now. "This is the fourth one, sir. I know how to read."

He rang up the two items wordlessly, movements jerky as he collected the appropriate amount of money from her, slim text and all.

She handed it over without a fuss, but her frown had deepened. "This is not a subject matter I am familiar with."

"You're going to read it whether you like it or not."

"I think not."

"Indulge me, girl. It'll do my heart some good."

The sentimentality of his words contradicted his character. Her brows rose high. "You are as...fit as a fiddle. Your nutritional intake is well and you exercise regularly. You drink tea, which I am assured does nothing but benefit your health."

"And we learn some clichés today! Where'd you get that pathetic simile, girl? Certainly not from one of _my _books."

"The building at the end of the avenue," she said.

He smiled and it was not a pleasant expression, though his amusement spiked in her eyes. "That rot? Foraging the library must have been quite the venture for you. Wherever did you find the book you learned that cliché from?"

She mumbled something and he could only shake his head in despair. He looked ready to throw his hands up into the air, but they both knew it would have done him no good. Think of his health. He told her she nagged him too much about it, but she was only mildly concerned that his exuberance would catch him unawares one day.

The stairs to his living space was steep after all. And he was fond of pacing about while muttering things under his breath. Absent minded and a vague sort of state. What if a madman made his way indoors? She watched him once. He'd snapped at her. Interrupting him by standing in his way was a mistake. His pacing was heavy and sure. Always. She delighted in his footsteps.

But he treated her like a child. And she was no mortal weak thing.

She wasn't mortal, yet he treated her as such. He was not an indulgent man. Aged. Jaded. Cruel, even, with a sadistic sense of humor. Streaks of it appeared now and then. Teenagers were his bane and grubby-fingered little children were intolerable. He was old, much too old, and he'd seen too much. His eyes, deep and obsidian. Glittering, black beetles. Weary. He was—

"Oh, stop it, girl," he said, slapping her hand. She started. "You were doing it again. Monologuing in your head and spiraling off into things better left alone, no doubt."

"I...I'm sorry?"

The old man shook his head, slow and mournful. He looked sad and though his face said one thing, his emotions said another. She stared, both bemused and flummoxed at his contradictory nature. "Exasperating girl," he said, but he was smiling.

Furrowing her brows, she slipped her hand through the crinkling handles of the paper bag. Distinguished. Torn, with texture rough against her skin.

She never understood why he looked at her so. It confused her how he could rail at the teenagers skulking at his doorstep, and then turn around and be kind to her. And he was kind, too kind. It was a wonder why he tolerated her at all when he preferred the absolute silence of his shop.

He was kind. He was kind and he was trying to teach her something she couldn't understand. His books, she admired them.

They spoke of fantastic things far beyond her reach. There were many she found difficult and had to stumble through. It was rewarding. The vocabulary was not strange to her, but the way they were formed...the phrases confused her. The description too rich, too full. Emotions displayed in ways that unnerved her.

It was altogether frightening and foreign. Uncomfortable. She didn't know what to feel about his insistence on making her read these things.

A guilty pleasure and she cowed at the thought of why she found secret pleasure in such things.

Literature. He caught her perusing a fictional text out of curiosity. Her mistake. Not a horrible accident, though, because it was giving her wondrous ideas all too new and...and exciting. Before this discovery, it was as if the world was muted and faded. Soft and detached. Boring.

It was blunt, too blunt, but true. Azarath was...this world was—

It hurt her eyes, attacked her tactile senses. Sounds reverberated differently here. Enriched food, as nutrition was to be _enjoyed_.

The world of the shop was as alien to her as she must've been to Earth. But it grew familiar and safe. Comfortable. A home that was not a home. Her anchorage and harbor. That lighthouse seen far out from sea. That never ending, glorious strip of sky. Safe...there were no _risks_.

Only through his books,that old man's escape. Now hers.

Dependency. She was starting to grow angry with herself. Since when had she been a coward? Why was she so afraid?

The old man. He hated people's company, and yet tried so hard with hers. He was brave. Strong, even. He was frail and fragile, but he was no glass. He'd not shatter at disappointments, fears, joys...

He would not be overwhelmed.

This was her mentor. And he was strong.

Clutching her purchases to her chest, she ducked her head and tried to be brave, tried to imagine herself taking that step step into an unknown world. That bright, shining world filled with colors, the setting of her novels.

Books, novels. She knew what he'd been trying to teach her now. At least...she thought she knew. Uncertainty was such an integral part of her life, it was no stranger now. She'd thought she'd be used to it, this terror.

She wasn't. Not really. Something else was mixed in with her fear. An unspoken tension. It was not bad, but it made her want to do some very foolish things.

Running a hand through moving, thriving fountain water. Indulging in some simple tea at the corner cafe. Sinking into her bath. Quiet moments like these were what she wanted. Contentment and simple pleasures...she felt just like that. As long as she could do those things, she could feel happy. She could pretend.

But she didn't want to pretend. She wanted...to live, to die, to cry, to laugh, to—yes...she wanted to be just like that. The characters in her books, they were living a dream. And if she closed her novel, she was afraid she'd forget that dream, so faint, and thin as wisp.

She didn't want to forget anything. Could she even smile anymore? The last time she had, it'd been with—

But he was gone.

Throat closing up, she knelt to pick up the bag she didn't know had fallen. Stopping, she looked down with absentminded eyes, a faint smile of remembrance on her face. A tremulous smile.

He was gone, but that didn't mean they weren't meeting again. They were...going to meet each other. Soon.

And somehow, she felt just like a character in a storybook. The thought almost pleased her. Perhaps now...perhaps this boy really could...

Books hugged to her chest, she stood and dusted herself off, hands lingering on the sleeves of her coat. Tucking herself deeper into familiar folds, she put away her purchase within one of the voluminous pockets at her disposal and walked away.

She looked up and the sight of the old man's speculative gaze met her own. She didn't frown, not quite, but she did give a small nod in his direction before quickly turning around.

The shop suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Heavy, pregnant pause, then his voice halted her.

"...So you lied, girl."

It was remarkable how she kept herself from tensing. Footsteps slowed to a stop, but she didn't turn. The door was a mere foot away—she couldn't have turned even if she had _wanted_ to. "Pardon?"

"You've always said how this...shop of mine, my home, was a sanctuary of sorts. Elysium, even. But you've lied, haven't you?" There was no reprimand in his tone, nothing at all to suggest that he was annoyed by her behavior. Apparent faults. Yet this air between them...this unspoken tension.

Why?

Her back taunt and face pinched, she said, "I have not lied."

"Ah," he said. "You're moving onto bigger, better things. Perfectly understandable. You're young, after all."

"What are you implying?"

"Where's your cloak, girl? Your belt?"

She shifted her weight to the other foot. "It is unnecessary. I have donned this coat here—"

"When it's this warm? In this blasted heat?" A single brow rose high. "Never mind that you've a penchant for that cloak of yours, but wherever did you pull this from?"

She understood. Frayed, enormous, and worn, the coat wasn't something she'd normally walk around in, not in this weather—and not ever. But the shop was cool. She said as much. He didn't believe her.

She pushed back the floppy, oversized hood out of her face for the third time and frowned. "I have an inexplicable fondness for this item. There is no reason for it. I like it." A glance at the shelved books, and then, "It is clean."

The old man burst into laughter and his face was transformed. Perplexed, she stared. His chuckles died down to a halt, but his withered hands were still shaking as he wiped his eyes. A flicker of a frown, and then he smiled, wry.

"Sir...?"

"Ah, never mind." He waved her away. "Dismiss this old man's rambling. Go on out and have your fun...the shock nearly bowled me over, girl. That's all."

"I see...then I will take my leave."

He shooed her away and she almost smiled.

After she left, she didn't notice his frown.

But she was gone. She was gone and preoccupied with thoughts of that boy she met. She looked up, discreetly wiped her brow, and said, "It hasn't rained since then..."

"Oh! It's the bookseller shop girl! Do you want the same thing as last time?"

Shaking her head, she pointed at a refrigerated quart and gave a small nod. She had never given indication that she'd been startled at all. Were her musings so deep that she wouldn't even have noticed wandering into an ice cream store?

"Let's see...strawberry this time, huh? All right..."

But the shop was cool and air conditioned, a blessing in this monstrous heat. She was only glad that her purchase would not need to suffer needlessly in the summer. Both purchases. She fumbled through her pockets and brushed the telltale cover of a book.

She grasped some coins...

"Wow. You always pay down to the last cent, don't you? Thank you for your patronage!" The bright and smiling girl then frowned. "You know...I've always wondered. How do you keep it from melting? You walk everywhere, right?"

A lilting shrug and a smirk.

"...Fine, fine, don't tell! Geez, if only I could afford to buy this stuff everyday! But, you know, starving college students have to suffer this kind of stuff, and it's not fun, I tell you..."

But she was already at the door, ice cream in hand, and rolling her eyes.

Ducking into a nearby alleyway, she held the purchased tub in front of her face and concentrated. A surreal black lining enveloped it, and then expanded sharply into a glowing sphere. A flicker of relief appeared on her face—but not an instant later and the sphere compressed fast, too fast, threatening to crush the fragile container, but it never did. Instead, beads of perspiration dripped and rolled down the ice cream's side, as the tub was collapsing into itself in soft defeat.

Her brows were furrowed, drawn together severely, until it eventually eased into a neutral expression once she was in control again. The magical phenomenon was slowing into second expansion already, growing into a dull, opaque sphere, when those droplets of water were abruptly frosting over.

She about-faced towards the entrance. The day called and she could only pay heed. Sweat lined her brow, the unexpected exertion from a simple task having made her shoulders tense with fatigue and disappointment.

It was fortunate, then, that finding her way through the city was hardly a challenge anymore. She was surprised with the ease in which she took to the streets. Vendors still distracted her, and the buildings were still colossal, and it was true she could fly upwards towards that glorious sky if she ever found herself to be lost, but...

The sun. She didn't want to go anywhere near the sun.

Breath panting and face flushed, she stepped through the open garage door and stopped short. The temperature was overwhelming in here, an unseen inferno of heat that washed over her like an unwelcome flood. A tide of unpleasant things. A tsunami of furiously moving molecules. Immediately, her clothes felt unbearably tight and suffocatingly warm, despite its enormous length. Perhaps it was what made it wrose.

Her eyes searched the shop. Beneath a monstrosity of a machine, a prone body was laid.

She stepped cautiously close. "Hello...?"

The enormous body jerked upwards, and metal slammed loudly against metal, resulting in curses. The body slid out immediately, and the person glared up at her when he stiffened.

She held up a plaintive hand, the tub of ice cream floating behind her. "Hello...again."

It was with a huff that he stumbled to his feet, kicking the wheeled bed away from him. "Yeah, yeah...what are you doing back here? Didn't I tell you not to come around here anymore?"

Her tone was solemn, forcibly controlled. "I bring you a peace offering." A pause. "...What do you feel about strawberries?"

"What do I feel about...? Okay, don't tell me you bought—"

"Ice cream. Yes."

He worked his jaw, single red eye glowing. "And you have a good grasp of money now?"

A slow brow raise didn't betray her surprise nearly as much as a sharp waver of the tub. "I am not a child." She very calmly pulled forth a fisted hand from her pocket and slapped it down onto the car's hood. The impact reverberated in the shop, its intense silence making it seem obscenely loud.

It was his turn to lift a brow; he was wholly unimpressed.

"A nickel," she said, pointing. "A quarter, a dime, and a penny. The money to purchase this dessert was a mere paltry sum compared to my weekly expense. I am not starving. I am not dying."

His peering was sarcastic. "You got any dollars in there?"

"I'm sorry," she said; wherever that brash courage had come from had long since fled. "They were spent buying the ice cream. Is this no good? I should have brought you a proper meal."

"You don't have to feed me."

"Yes."

"You shouldn't have to!" His face twisted into stubbornness before he turned his head. "Go...go feed yourself. I don't want to have to worry about you."

"You are struggling. I understand independence and pride, but—"

"I'm still mad at you. You know that, right?—Damn it..." He turned fully away from her and clutched his face with his two hands. "...You don't even understand why I'm angry."

She looked up silently, lips parting with her sigh. "I can take care of myself. I am learning, and my employer helps me when I fall."

"Right. Right. Why'd you buy ice cream again? You wanna throw up?"

"I am not used to excessive amounts of sugar, unlike someone I know."

Her deadpan remark did nothing but make him grimace. He brought his hands away, and a glare was revealed. "How are you eating nowadays? Still chugging down that herbal tea stuff? Do you cook or is it only instant? Don't trust the grocer down the street! And how do you—"

"I have studied," she said. "I have studied, and your worries are needless." Something gave her pause—seen in the furrow of her brows. "But...thank you."

"You're avoiding it. You're avoiding _saying_ what I want you to say."

"What do you want me to say? 'Forgive me?' I was ignorant. I was...I wasn't doing anything intended." A sharp exhale of the breath, and she looked pained. "I do not want to die. I really don't. But sometimes...sometimes when I look up at the sky and know what is to come, I—"

"You were starving yourself. Unintentionally or not, I had no clue." He turned and slammed a metal fist into the car, gritting his teeth. "I had no _clue_."

"This world is strange. The first repast I had almost killed me. I was wary, but I did not mean to harm myself to the extent I had." She faltered. "None of it was your fault. My body—it heals itself, you see?"

But he wouldn't look at her. The fist that he pulled away from the hood left a heavy dent in it. He opened his hand only to clench it again. "So?"

"So do not tell me to not come anymore. I wouldn't understand...why." She rested tentative hand on his arm. "Please do not chase me away. We are friends."

"We are?" His voice was hollow.

With more courage than she knew she possessed, her hand fell from his arm to grasp his own. Their hands were clasped, but loosely enough to assume that he did not react. "We are," she said. And waited.

His head was bowed, and she could not see his face. He didn't say anything.

"Why are you so disturbed?" she said finally. "I know now that you are not entirely angry at me. Something has happened."

A long, reluctant pause. "A neighborhood kid who I knew when I was still...normal was at the junkyard the other day."

She fell quiet; she knew very well where he lived. "How has he come to your home?"

He barked a laugh. "You call that trash heap my home?"

"I am sorry. It was not my place to—"

"Forget it."

They lapsed into another uncomfortable silence while she trembled at his side. She could not pull away. She could never have removed herself in this situation, but even if she was able to, she was afraid. He would not look at her, he would not respond—she wondered why she still clutched at his immobile-stricken fingers.

What was she waiting for? She wanted to see him smile. She wanted to let go of him in order to shut her ears to what he still had to say. She wanted...to not know of the horrors he had gone through all this time, alone.

His memories, lingering in the folds and creases of her mind like a forgotten, wispy thing was not actually forgotten at all; she could never forget the bitter twang of his emotions resounding and entwining with hers. She wished she could run away and leave all the impressions she'd gathered of him behind. She wanted to run, to fly so freely away and escape the new yawning trap that was surely there to meet her fall...

But she still wanted to see him smile. She wanted that small, quiet, and content smile all to herself, to preserve that one suspended moment in time when she had seen such a delight. How selfish was she to want to demand such a thing of him. How terrible. She was so terrible and awful. She hated herself.

And she was afraid. She was so unbearably afraid. And this irrevocable fear, she knew, would choke her alive and slither down her throat and rip out her entrails, and she would cry and cry with stark open eyes—but no one would answer.

She was so afraid.

Right then, she stared at her hand, those trembling fingers that touched cold, metallic ones, that brave and incomprehensible hand, and wondered wherever did that courage come from. It had been an almost unconscious gesture, a languid, spring of emotion that had occurred beyond her understanding.

She wondered, even now, why she did not move away.

I want to see you smile, she wanted to say. I want to see it. Your joy.

She could hardly bare it, this terrible feeling.

It was with a tremulous, trembling hand that she began to pull away, when she gasped.

"Don't go." The shudder his enormous frame gave nearly forced him to his knees, making him stumble against the car. Its hood shrieked against his sudden weight, but he never let go. He never let _her_ go.

He was holding her hand. He was clutching it as if she was the only thing grounding him to this earth, clutching her...like a child with all the impotent incredulity and confusion and hurt that only a child could express when he'd been abandoned or seen his life torn apart right before his eyes—that child.

The unsteady tub splattered to the floor. Warm, oozing liquid seeped out from the open lid, and her powers, which was supposed to have kept it cold, had failed. The shop was too warm. She'd been distracted.

"Don't go," he said, again. And he slid down the car's metal length and crumpled to the floor. His grip on her tightened, but she never tried to pull away. It was uncomfortable, though.

"Ice cream," she said. "It's getting...all over me."

She'd been jerked to the floor and was now in an ungainly position. He reluctantly let her only so that she could sit down beside him, and then he pulled her close.

The thick coat between them acted as a buffer, but her face still burned. It was embarrassing to have smeared sticky, pink-frothed substance on him, after all, and further still to have been practically forced to tumble to his side.

But she didn't mind. Not when he slung a loose, heavy arm around her shoulders. Not when he ducked his face close to hers. She emulated him, and their heads were bowed together, touching and intimate.

She released a breath. The weight of his arm around her was very comforting, and she sunk into the folds of her coat—_his_ coat—and relished in the feeling.

The shop was hot and uncomfortable. She was sweating profusely, and there was melted ice cream all around her. She must have looked a sight, panting and flushed. And the metal—she could feel his overheated body as it worked horrors on the temperature around her.

But she did not mind.

* * *

I like Raven's refrigeration technique, and I have a reader to thank for pointing out its scientific workings. She's also learned to handle money after some numerous mishaps, and her demon nature saved her from starvation. Tea only gets a brief nod, but the occasional clichés are there because Raven has begun her foray into literature.

Cyborg lives in a junkyard. How depressing, but realistic once you consider he's homeless. Wherever does he get his spare parts and technological experience, after all? His bitter experimentation in his makeshift home has led him to wrangle a full-time job as a mechanic, apparently.


	3. Nature's Fury

I'm not at all familiar with the ranges in California's climate. For the purpose of the fic, I'm loosely basing Jump's off of the Mediterranean's—dry summers and rainy winters. I'm taking liberties since the exact location of the city is unknown.

In terms of action, this chapter is much more focused in its writing with a bit of introspection, but much less dazed than the last two. It's also longer, but it's kinda sad. If you catch any inconsistencies, go ahead and tell me.

* * *

As she threw herself against screaming metal and tried to burrow her way into the tight space available through a broken window, she was acutely aware of her own peril. How the dark, that merciless dark, blinded her, making her reach forward and touch things like a child. How the wind careened and bashed against her protective cover of gritty metal and ripped leather. How the tower of cars she sought refuge in was beginning to tilt over.

How the bottom of her boots was drenched with mud, and how the hem of her coat kept trying to drag and drag her down into the messy grit awaiting her in murky water.

She was scared—frightened of what was happening around her. She didn't know what to do or what would happen to her. She was scared, so scared. Every sway of her immobile island, every splatter of precipitation that slapped against her face—her bangs, they were plastered to her face. She couldn't see. It was too dark—_nothingness_.

Cowering and beaten by the circumstances, she tucked her body into the tight, rough opening between the front seats of the van, and cried.

Or at least, she thought she cried. She honestly couldn't tell what she was doing. All she could do was grip her head in her two hands in the face of this new and mindless agony. All she could do was stare, wide-eyed with mere pinpricks of pupils, into her knees as she curled into her legs. And wait.

She was so utterly scared.

But she waited.

The window, the window and its jagged, glass edges, dribbled down with life's blood—_her _blood. It'd run red, mixing and mingling with the plummeting waters that swarmed the entrance. Merciless rain that attacked the opening again and again. Unheeding. Unyielding—it didn't care for her trembling form or how her mind went blank from terror. Her shins and calves, they stung and ached fiercely with the matted dust and grime on the carpeted floor of the vehicle. They rubbed into her wounds, but she could hardly pay them any attention. Her whole being was riveted on the action of waiting—waiting...for what?

The storm would carry on. It would continue, continue, continue...and then she would die. She couldn't bear this torment. The floodwaters that had only weakly ebbed against her ankles mere minutes—minutes? Moments? Hours?—ago was now crashing against the enormous door of the metal van.

It reminded her of the sea. Of its terrors. Like that day at the beach—the day she saved that little girl's life in a daze. But she wasn't in a daze now. She was in an acute state of undeniable _awareness _of the surroundings around her. Of the rain. The storm, the winds. The water.

There was no moving water on Azarath. Perhaps a small conservatory pool, allocated at every living unit, but that was it. There were no rivers, streams—nothing of nature's intended. Not like this place. Not like Earth.

But this...this was beyond her comprehension. She'd once read a phrase that she didn't understand, a strange description, a way of wording, in one of her books. It had been odd. It must have been how she was able to remember it, dimly, previously forgotten even as it lurked in her mind.

The grasp on literary expressions and the colloquial, casual speech of the people frequenting the city streets...they were too hard to understand. Every day things she struggled with, things she believed to be weaknesses for she had little talent in adapting to them. She thought herself weak—what had she come to Earth for? To be overwhelmed by its culture? But it was how she felt.

And now that phrase crept up on her, stealing into her thoughts. Normally, it would have been difficult for her to remember such a thing. Now, it seared in her memory and suddenly she understood.

This was nature's fury.

Absurd, she'd thought. Personifying a nonliving entity? Giving it human characteristics—like an author would a talking cat? Weather did not have _emotions_, and if they did she would have found it incredibly unfair. And yet...

Fury implied retribution. Fury spoke of a terrible anger she was only familiar with in her dreams. Fury was...fury plagued her every move, made her suffer in the deepest corners of her mind, personified all that bad in her, all that was evil...

Personifying? Was it silly to personify a planet's climate?

She sat there, rocking herself back and forth—and hardly aware of it, so caught was she in her own revelation. So horrified.

Was she being punished?

_I do not deserve this_, she wanted to shout, but she was shaking. After all...did she really? Did she really deserve simple pleasures—reading, contentment, interactions, living, living, _living—_when she was half-breed filth? When all the world—_universe_, a slithering thought answered instead—hated her? There was good in the world, such goodness that she balked at taking it for herself. She did not deserve it. She was a monster. A demon. There was an unholy taint in her that could do no beauty or good or _pleasurable _for the world. Nothing so evil deserved something so good, and pure, as love and emotions and the sensations she felt whenever she saw—

When she saw—

She did not want to let him go. Her heart ached, that ever beating treacherous thing. It was an organ, she knew. Nothing special. Nothing so profound as to live her life by it. The clinical part of her, that ever cold and detached side of her conscious, knew it kept her alive—but was it worth it? What was living but a daily torturous cycle of denial and self-hate and all things bad? What was living but an eternity of reminders of what was to come?

What was living but to hurt? It hurt. Every waking moment, it hurt—her heart. It kept whispering wondrous things to her, wonderful and lovely peaceful things, and she wanted to believe. Truly, she did. She wanted to trust in the sincerity and the solemn truth in his eyes.

She had waited, but he did not come.

He did not come. He was not coming—he was not _going_ to come. He was leaving her out here to die by herself. A stray pet dog, a trifle distraction to the normalcy and boredom of daily life. A plaything. A toy to be thrown away—a tool that was no longer usable. Worthless. The rotting growth at the bottom of a dump. The scratches on a new customer's car. The weeks of aged food pulsating in their scavenged refrigerator—

But Father was not like that. He would never do such a thing—not _Father_, not her god. Not the one who saw fit to give her that very same worthless life. Not the one who would always have a purpose for her. Until the very day she died.

She would die. And when she would due, she would have been able to have given it for the only one who mattered.

She would die. She was going _to die_. It was her life's purpose, her reason for existence—her _raison d'être_. Without that what was her use? What was her point in living? Why she was even on this earth, this planet, this tiny...tiny...insignificant planet?

He'd commanded her to live and to flee the homeworld He destroyed so pitilessly. She'd come to Earth, instinctively, knowing full well what her presence here meant, no matter her denial. Or her regrets. A desire for forgetfulness.

How selfish was she. How terribly, terribly selfish. She wanted pleasures, a life. Simple joys. Contentment from waking in the mornings. Waiting for a fresh steaming cup of tea. Holding a new book—watching _him _work his magic with the mechanical playthings he so loved...

What was she to him, that curious being who she sought comfort in. What a delight he was to her. A friend—such a _novelty_. Surely that was all he was to her. That glorious revelation in which they both basked in each other's discovery...what was that? They had met in a disgustingly awful, dingy Jump alleyway. There was no glory to be had, no achingly, tragically sweet calling that had drawn the two of them both to each other. That hadn't been happiness she'd felt when she found him—when he found _her_. That wasn't a bond they'd formed that night. There wasn't any friendship to be had.

She didn't deserve any.

They'd met in the rain. She'd revived what tiny, stupid hope still quivered in her being in that rain—it was only fitting that it died in rain.

He wasn't coming for her. And it _hurt_.

Suddenly, suddenly...it all made sense. The rain. This punishment. Her life's blood.

She could not die here in this pathetic state. It was such startling common sense that it gave her reason more to call herself stupid, ugly, worthless—how could she spawn forth a new age onto this world if she could not even handle a little weather?

Pathetic. And useless. _Worthless. _Disgustingly so. Her father would be so ashamed. Weak, half-breed _filth_ unable to even survive long enough to carry out the prophecy. How shameful. It was too shameful. To have a daughter like this...

In a daze, she unfolded herself from her coward's posture and laid back onto the matted, hideous carpet, welcoming the wind. Welcoming the rain, its torrents, and all its bacteria-ridden, filthy waters. She welcomed it, all of it, accepting the storm's presence as fact. She felt detached now, a curious sensation that allowed her see her fear for what it was—_weak_. Foolish. Ridiculous in the most highest fashion.

She would not die. She felt confident in that now, reasonably. How pitiful if she were to be wiped out here in such an unseemly manner. It was not to be. It could not even be considered, such a stupid possibility. Not even! It wasn't a possibility at all.

What was she so afraid of? Of getting a little wet?

Swimming. She would never have thought of it before, but this was all it was. A little swim. Finally. Her father would forgive her for using such a banal method of leaving this place. She could not fly, as her concentration was shattered—and there was no teleporting to be had here. But, surely, she could _wade_? Anything—_everything_!—she had to leave this place. Now.

It was just a junkyard. Her home of four months. But it was just a junkyard.

He would not come. She was sure of it.

After all, it was only madness to pursue a demon's host, the chosen vassal of the incarnation of evil, the personification of all things bad.

She was bad. She felt just like that. It was inevitable, really. She was her father's child. Undeniably and irrevocably, she was that _being_'s spawn.

He would not come, but that was good—he should stay away. He should have done so from the very start. He never, ever should have even considered her companionship as something good to indulge in. Hadn't he realized the intent within her body would eventually rule the world? If only through pure destruction? What a fool. But he was _her_ fool, a dear, dear fool...

They were friends.

Weren't they?

She crawled her way towards her escape, dirty glass bits clawing at her skin on the cushion underneath her hands and arms and knees, but she didn't care. Kneeling on the seat, hands on the window frame—her movements were unsure, half-hearted, without any of the conviction that she had in her own head.

_Weren't they?_

Stretching out her arms, she heaved herself against the metal door as she pulled herself forward. She could barely see, the weather smashed into her face, throwing her head this way and that. She let out a whimper—sharpness dug mercilessly into her abdomen, scraping against her suit as she tried crawling through. She toppled forth.

He lurched forward and caught her with a cry. Thunder roared above their heads, and the rain was pitiless, as always. Never ending. The lightening that streaked across the sky gave him all the illumination he needed to see her terrified face. Her horror, which turned into dawning astonishment, that immense disbelief that blinded her and made her reach forth with two hands like a child.

She could hardly believe her eyes.

"You're here," she said, but he couldn't hear. Instead, he tightened his hold on her; he'd seen her lips move. And she let him, consumed by this sensation that made her feel so safe.

In all the wretched darkness that enveloped their beings, she could still see his one red eye glow. It was a comfort, one she was unprepared for. It was a feeling that surged in her so suddenly it seized her throat and made it hard to breathe—it felt like _home_.

The water was easily up to his knees. It lapped at her legs, stinging them, those bloodied shins and scraped thighs. The situation called, rudely knocking its way into her momentary reprieve; the pain may have been dull and old, but it was nonetheless alerting.

She turned away, shrugging him off—he didn't let her. She looked up quickly.

His expression was as stricken as her voice had been, and he grasped her face with his enormous hands. Desperation lingering in that gaze, a helpless hurt.

The world stood still.

She could not see anything other than this boy, hear nothing but his panting breaths.

The setting gradually began to fade away, and she could only stare at him. Only he filled her perception now. The storm, the hideous winds, the water—none of it mattered. Only him.

Relief, then grief. He left her there without a word for days on end. Nothing. She hadn't felt infuriated—stricken, yes. Not mad, but terrified. Loneliness had settled in and she thought herself to be abandoned. It was frightening.

She thought he'd tossed her away. Like her father.

The two images collided in her mind—but they never coincided. There were only two beings in the world who cared for her. The boy in front of her, for one, and the monster within her. Waiting.

Waiting...for her to succumb and fall and be destroyed by her own inhibitions, weaknesses. Like her father thought she would. Idiotic child—but_ this boy_ didn't think so. Not _this friend_ who was more than a brother to her. Sibling affections, but that was an earthly bond. Not theirs. They were different. _He _was different.

But it was still all too new to her, too bright and shining. She was never able to understand it, her own inclinations. She wanted to sit by his side. Quiet moments marred with nothing but silence. A bond like theirs needed no conversation. They only needed to look at each other, clasp hands...it didn't matter that he couldn't physically feel her embraces or that she was virtually a stranger to him just several months ago. It didn't matter how frightening his countenance could get, how much he had to restrain himself not to throw the first punch at his tormentors. Or how she once startled him with a vision of red eyes.

None of that mattered to her. His darkest moments were her relief because then she could do _something _for him. She was useless to him, did absolutely nothing but stand by his side. But he still wanted her companionship. Was it to wrong to wish for it to continue? This easy acceptance of her heritage, her abnormalities, her ignorance of this world—he wanted all of it.

She wanted to banish whatever pains and darkness lurked in his heart because he of all people did not _deserve_ such.

It was with an exhausted and tired smile that she gave in. At the same time, though, screeching metal—loud enough to rip through the weather—careened over their heads as something smashed into hers. The impact ripped her away from her friend's arms and sent her crashing into the water; she lost sight of him. The clumped piles of cars and engines and metallic things had finally given way. With them at its base.

Messily stacked one on top of another, each item scrambling to be at the very tip of the pyramid, it had been her home of four months, destroyed by the elements.

With a gasp, she stumbled to her feet. Mud and muk mired her clothes, her coat drenched and threatening to topple her back to the flooded ground, but she held steady. She could barely see, the storm was at its worst.

Lightening struck. Something dribbled down her cheek, and her already lank, wet hair was matted more with blood. She blinked and the world wobbled precariously when her vision proved faulty. Moments later, as she rubbed furiously at her face, a hillside of junk slid into the space before her—its movements sloshing the water against her favor. She tripped, face first, and involuntarily swallowed.

The water tasted acrid.

His name was on her lips, but her soundless shout never made it above the watery surface. With hacking coughs, she tried standing up again, but she was hindered when something struck her hard in the gut—a car's front, she saw, in another great brilliant flash of electricity. She'd nearly toppled over again. Her body hurt all over.

Whimpering, she clutched at her belly and at what hit her, but to accomplish what? She neither had the magic or strength in her to push the vehicle away, which was only barely being held back on dry land by _something_. But it was relentlessly heavy; it wanted to slide right over her and into the water. Her knees buckled at the thought. She couldn't move at all because her coat was caught onto the loose hood and threatened to pull her into the water and underneath the car's heels.

She wanted to cry. Or scream. Her hands wildly, desperately, _blindly_ scrambled to release the coat from the car, but they felt her friend's back instead. The hard metal plating was reassuring. And frightening.

"What are you doing!" she said, pushing at him. Away. Futilely. "We must go! High ground back towards the city is—" She broke off; lightening had struck again. The world, illuminated, had sharply given way to its cruelties in that one brief moment of respite, and then it was dark.

The reason for her abrupt silence...he bowed his head in acknowledgment to what she had seen. She, horrified, said nothing.

He, mouth straining with the words, said, "I can't lose you again. Not again...Raven."

Her heart thudded in her ears, a slow and loud, taunting beat.

She swallowed. "You said my name." They were empty words, said very faint; her attention was riveted to the spike driven straight through his chest.

"Y-yeah...and I'll say it again. _Raven_."

She stared, ridiculously long and flopping coat tugging her this way and that back into the rushing water—_when had it been freed?_—but she held herself still with the shock of the sight before her. Or rather, her own immobile legs held her steady whereas she should have long fallen to her knees.

The roar of the weather hardly registered anymore. Something broke inside of her—_she could feel it break_. "...You're hurt."

The iron spike, ancient by its red-hued, rusted coating, was clearly meant for industrial use but was thrown away instead. The reason was clear; its torn and twisted, jagged end jutted straight out of her friend's back. The very same end that would've pierced her own chest and ripped her in half.

Her own horror, present in the screaming halt of her mind, was palpable to anyone who would've seen her just then. It was in her eyes, the uncomprehending glint that made her smile a disbelief-stricken, incredulous smile.

Hysteria was settling in, and fast. Perhaps it was because the only person she ever cared for in all of this godforsaken planet looked over his shoulder...and smiled.

Smiled in the only way he knew how. Pained, saddened—the embittered irony ingrained in that special twist of the lips that was all his. A strained, half-smile that should not be.

"It doesn't hurt a bit, you know," he said. Inanely. As if to reassure her. Even as his voice box had cracked and wavered with his obvious lie. Even with his whole body held taunt with the shock done to its system.

There was something bubbling in her throat, a sound that choked out of her mouth and made his one human eye flicker. The glowing red one, the one that had comforted her what seemed ages ago, had begun its struggle from descending into a shut downed state—but nothing could keep its crimson hue from dulling.

His body was shutting down on its own. That innate glow that surrounded him, even in the daytime, was dying, flickering to a stop. Dead.

It was only a moment later that she realized she was laughing. Great heaving sobs and choking noises, she laughed hard, she laughed loud—she reached and ran a careless hand over the rusted metal, and then his gloriously polished one, all the while in hysterics over the contrasts. She didn't know what she was doing. She felt broken.

The car that had rammed against her stomach, the one he stopped from running right over her and into the water, groaned as he steadily pushed forward. "Get back to the city," he said, gritting his teeth, _and turning his head away from her_. Pain colored his speech, and it was pain that made him sag against the very pole smashed through him—his only support. His legs were twitching to fall, and they would fail their master at any given moment.

Stumbling towards him, she reached out a hand to...to help, to do anything, but he jerked away from her.

"Go!" he said in a near shout—but it was far too hoarse, to weak to be a shout. Not the kind she associated with him. Nothing at all like the volume of his yelling. This, more than anything else, even his injury, unnerved her.

He'd come for her. She would not leave him.

But when she said as much, his frame shook and heaved with his effort to truly _yell_. "Get out! You said it yourself—get to higher ground! The city'll be alright!" His frustration lent him the energy to say, "_You can't do anything for me_. Leave, Raven!"

The water had reached her waist, hardly higher than his knees, but telling; the rain would not stop anytime soon. They would soon drown if this kept up. No one knew they were down here—and who would care? A couple of homeless kids living on the outskirts of town...

Who would save him if she left him now? No one knew they were down here...

Jump was safe from this hellish storm; any floodwater would have slipped right off the land and into the bay. But with a landfill only a few miles away and a littering of junkyards scattered around the area they chose as their home, every cliff wall sloped downhill. Towards them. Everything was in their disfavor.

And she could not heal metal, but she knew it wasn't only rainwater filling the cavity of his chest; there were splotches of blood _everywhere_. They had to have come from him. He was going to die. He was going to die if she didn't do something _now_.

She would not leave him. She would never leave him. Because—_because_...

Suddenly, his waist was encased by her arms with her head tucked under the driven spike. She would never let him go. His head jerked around and he was screaming _something_ over his shoulder, but she could no longer hear...

The wind receded. The rain did not.

Its drops splattered into her face and eyes as she looked up, away from his panicked face. A calm settled in her, the detached safety blanket of a medic. She'd never done this before, but what she was intending to do was not a healing. Not yet. Only until they were back safe at home...

Not this trash heap. This junkyard had long ceased to be home to her.

She was kneeling in the water, clutching him, but she didn't care. Focusing was much more important, and gathering her broken concentrated needed to be done quickly. Efficiently. It had to be done _now_. Something had to be done _now_.

He'd always been her harbor, that glorious lighthouse in the distance. The oasis in the desert. He would not die...she would never leave him to die. Self-depreciation urged him to cast his lot with the junk around them. _He was not worthless_.

"I'll go into the abyss with you. You are not alone." The trembling metal legs against her body went stark still, but she knew he was listening. She would shout the words if she had to. "Did you hear me? _You're not alone._ I won't let you act in this ridiculous martyr fashion. You are above this...answer me. Answer me!"

There was no answer. In her anger, she flung herself around his immobile form to look up into his face—and stopped.

His one mechanical eye was completely dull, flat, and dead. And his other eye, the other one...

It was with a scream that she let out the words, "_Azarath Metrion Zinthos_!"

Black matter burst forth from her chest and surrounded them and enveloped them and consumed the skies and—!

They disappeared.

It was some weeks later and the storm had long ceased, but he had not yet awaken. He was alive, no doubt, and she'd removed the pole from his body and healed what human parts she could see within his collapsed chest, but...

He was breathing and that was all. It was enough.

His arm kept beeping in a slow inane way. It'd driven her crazy in the beginning but was now a comfort.

It was all she could go by. It matched the beat of his heart. It was all she _had_.

She'd taken them to the garage he worked at. Where else could she go? She had to clue, no idea where to go from here. He wasn't dead, but would he be even able to function? If he woke up—_when_. Maybe.

She didn't even know what she would say to the person who discovered them. They could not live forever in secrecy at a _workplace_. This was all they had. His workshop, this garage...

There was no flooding in these parts. It gladdened her, a small relief. It continued to rain on and off, but nothing like the hellish experience from a week before.

The nightmare was supposed to have ended at that junkyard, but it had only just begun. She didn't know how to monitor him, didn't know whether her healing helped at all—she wasn't even sure if he would survive in the end. The beeping was what she considered her warning, but even then did she have the faintest idea what she would do if it suddenly cut off or faded away? The latter would have been unbearable—to _hear_ his life just...fade away.

He needed new parts for...for _repairs_, she imagined. She didn't dare touch him, though, because his body was alien to her as she was alien to his needs. When would he wake up, she would wonder, torturing herself with her own predicament. After all, if she hadn't been there, if she'd only paid heed to the weather and _fled_ that godforsaken dump, if she'd seen that sliding car coming and dodged before he could stop it for her...before that spike fell towards her—!

It did her no good, this masochistic cycle. Her thoughts were vicious and they attacked her frequently, often catching her unawares. Guilt gnawed at her belly constantly and she felt light-headed. Whatever she consumed, she heaved from her stomach—eating did her no good, but she must get nourishment inside her. Inside both of them.

She wasn't even sure whether her friend _had_ a stomach. Unlikely, from what she'd seen. What was he then, a vacuum with a removable container?

It was an inane thought. Sometimes they were more inane or they were made as if to torment her. She didn't know what to do.

In all of this, though, never did she once consider leaving. It was blasphemy at this point, a train of thought she would never pursue—but could she take care of another human being? When he was half made of metal? When she was a foreigner to not only these parts but to this _world_?

He'd spoken her name. He'd spoken _her name_. Four months they'd known each other, and they had never broken that silent and unsaid rule. It wasn't a matter of secrecy because they'd _seen_ the other's very soul. She didn't know why he never said her name until now, but what about she?

She knew the answer as surely as the events that led to his coma happened. As soon as he'd wake up, she would tell him. She had to because her stomach clenched in awful ways whenever she thought about avoiding it. _This_ was awful, this feeling of waiting. But she would wait for as long as it took for him to come back—she'd waited once before and it was torturous. Yet he'd come back to her. And so she would wait again. Waiting...forever.

She still didn't know why he left her in the first place. Without any apparent reason at all, he fled, and his secrecy had led to a catastrophe. But it wasn't his fault. It was all hers, surely. It wasn't a happy thought and she wished it was false, but every time she looked at his prone form, she...

She was so, so glad he was alive.

Kneeling by his head, she laid a hand on his face and stroked its contours, explored the planes of his human skin and the scarring of flesh clashing against metal. Her hair had grown from the little girl haircut from months before, and the ends of it brushed the tip of his nose.

She could almost imagine him batting the strands away, like he once had when he played with the dark locks of her head. There was amusement to be had here, she was sure, and so she affected a smile. It was weak.

"I'm told it's quickly approaching a new season. Winter. The winters I've read in my novels speak of snow and cheer and places far from here. It won't snow here, though, will it? I doubt it. I...I'd read to you because I have nothing to say, don't you see?" She swallowed, struggling past the lump in her throat. "Oh. Oh, this is stupid of me. What's more important, your life or my books? But I lost all of them back there. I'm not going back. I _won't_. You almost died. You can't expect me to go after them. Our money has to go for foodstuff."

Her friend didn't react. Of course he wouldn't have, but it allowed her to gather her composure. There wasn't forced cheer in her voice because it was hard enough keeping it even. "I won't poison you and I don't want to keep forcing you to drink soup. I'll protect us from all of that because my employer is willing to have us. Isn't that good? But it's not. He doesn't know anything about my powers or the _boyfriend_ I keep stealing away to see."

She barked a laugh. It was a harsh sound. "You, my boyfriend? I can hardly see it happen..." Words lapsing into silence, she leaned over until their foreheads touched. Her eyes were squeezed tight. For the first time in living memory, both sides of his face were cool to her touch.

A smile, a tremulous, timid smile, and her voice sounded as small as she felt. "Come back, okay? Please come back..."

* * *

There are some loose ends important to the story like what happened before this chapter that made Cyborg leave and why Raven never calls him by name. Also, she never refers to herself by name, but that's more for writing style than actual plot.

There's an implied off-screen scene in which Cyborg resists 'throwing the first punch at his tormentors' at the same time it's said that Cyborg sees her demonic red eyes for the first time. It's important. I've also finally addressed the prophecy, which Cyborg doesn't know about.

The car-water scene was messily written, but still understandable, I think.

As it stands, this fic is going to turn into an alternate Teen Titans origins fic, but it won't go into the events of the series. This means that the others will turn up, but I'm more concerned about developing these two right now.


	4. Passive Aggressive

As you must know by now, this is mostly an introspective fic because it's easier to show Raven's development this way. Sometimes, I can get carried away and mess up the balance between introspective vs. action, leading to tedium.

Scene breaks are used for the first time.

* * *

Time moved strangely now. Perception was nothing, her own mind unwilling to be trusted. _She_ not willing to trust it. What was perspective in the scheme of things? What was this useless, demeaning effort she put into fighting?

She was tired.

So utterly tired.

But life continued mockingly, as always, a never ending stream of flow, of time, that went smoothly on, wrapping her in its coying curls.

It was an inescapable truth that she could not move on. Not like the world did after everything was said and done. Nothing at all like what life was supposed to be but was now. Despair and such things, abstinence and deviance of all joy and future sights...

The feeling she felt now was different from that of Azarath. Wholly different and all consuming—she could not escape.

Time, memories, sights, and perceptions...what did any of these matter in the face of her despair? Or was it despair she felt and not just a cold numbness that forced her to smile and laugh and look up into that ironic sky with a cracked smile—

What was joy? Why were these people happy _and where had hers gone_?

Little children, happy children. Like the smiling spawns of that happy and fat man from a beach so long ago—_when was it? when was it?_—but she no longer felt any urge to save others. Save the world? She was wholly selfish and this truth was good enough for her.

She was a selfish, selfish being. Who cared about her half baked plan now? Run away? Protect others? _Redeem_ herself?

Not anymore.

She wanted to grasp happiness for herself. And when it was taken away she was devoid, unable to savor the memories. Regret, regret, regret...fear. A child pouting at unhappy things, a child desperately lost at the absence of its newest plaything.

A child.

Was she ever a child? Not Azarath—never there.

However, sometimes...when she was with him...

But the world went on. Children were happy, and fat men smiled.

Life was struck unawares that its pillar had begun to crumble.

She felt...?

What had she felt when he lived?

_Why did she want to become a child again?_

With him, when she was with him, what was that sensation? That terrible, frothing greed that wanted to consume him? Preserve feelings and lock them all entirely in her heart? The pain of remembering. Or was it the pain of forgetting?

Companionship, human joy. Conversations in the long morning hours. The sipping of tea and absent minded glances and gestures that showed for all the world that they were friends.

Emotions. Flickers, ghosts and wisps of them, _but they were there_. They had been there! Where were they now?

She couldn't even remember a day begotten of fear. Not anymore.

And so she questioned what was this new cloak her body was shrouded in, this new persona that had settled over her soul? What was this deep, gaping blankness that frightened her more than the way her thoughts swirled and fogged, unknowing, unheeding—! _Where, where, were the answers_?

In her books, humans, these _characters_...what did they think was the most vulnerable, pitiful state? To be a babe? A weakling newborn, or a empty headed, insipid child? The shame of youth! Of being stupid and young!

Her mother had been human enough, so why did her daughter never had that same privilege? The same mentality, acknowledgment, that to be a child was stupid and foolish, a thought not even worth considering?

She never had a childhood.

When she was with him...

Was that what she had felt? Like a child?

"_...grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it. . . . If they fall off, they fall off. . . ." _

Like a carousel going round and round, it never went around anymore. There was never any change. The children delighted in its twirling mechanics, in its everlasting euphoric effects of happiness and blissful ignorance and _innocence_. An innocence they were never aware they had. Around and around the horses go...but it was stuck in a perpetual motion. A dead end. A failsafe method of tying children down, keeping them from the horrors of the world, keeping them in happy ignorance...

But all children want to _desperately_ grasp for that gold ring high up on the revolving ceiling, that acrylic and brightly painted carousel. Hands reaching far up, to grab the golden ring hanging just beyond reach of each rotation...to risk their own identities and selves for a risk that could bear them harm! But with each try they mature, grow...grow up...?

The time from before, that happy and blissful time of dreams and faded troubles...

_It existed no longer._

"...Can't you hear me, man? Can't you understand? Will you never learn? Don't you know that I am sane and earnest now; that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting for his soul?" She sighed. "'Oh, hear me! hear me! Let me go! let me go! let me go!'..."

Silence. And then she frowned. "What does this man have to fear from suffering in an asylum? He talks of being free, but it won't do him any good in the end. So desperately fighting—pathetic." She closed the book shut with a snap, and stood. "What idiocy is this..."

"Sit down, girl. You're hardly finished." The old man huffed a breath, shaking his head. "You've been very agitated as of late. You're attitude is very...how should I put it?"

"Don't bother."

"Hm. Contractions, eh? Colloquial from you is a strange thing. It relieves me, which is a disturbing thing in of itself."

She looked away. "Don't bother. I've been speaking like this long before today."

His gaze was shrewd, but there was no jest in his voice. "That boy of yours in the back. Is he the one that changed you?"

Barely withholding a scoff, she said, "Of course not. No one changed me but myself."

He suddenly switched track. "I suppose you think yourself above books now. All high and mighty, I have to wonder what happened to bring about this extraordinary progression."

The barest of hesitations, but he latched onto her moment of weakness. His appearing grin was jovial. "Ah. Acting the sulky teenager has not affected your common sense, I see. You do your work poorly and you won't even read to an old man like me, and yet you expect me to still provide you books? You can still pay, I guess, but who controls your wages?"

"You don't need me to read to you," she said, biting her tongue. "You're not senile and you've decided to act on your good grace and help me with my substantial loss in books."

"You still haven't told me what happened to all of them."

"And I won't be telling anytime soon."

"Such vigor. I really am curious to know what happened to you."

Incredulity broke through her brooding, and surprise made her blurt out her next words. "You're not curious about the boy I brought here with me?"

"Of course not. Do I look like I care? He's only here because of you."

The statement was so blunt she couldn't argue. There was no offense to be had anyway—not when faced with such brutal honesty.

She appreciated it.

"He's someone who's hurt because of me. Someone I admire, someone I like..."

The old man leaned back, contemplative now at her change of mood. "And you feel strongly about this young man?"

"Do I?"

"You certainly look it."

"You're right," she said. "He's the first friend I've had. I...can't lose him, understand?"

The old man cocked his head, frowning. "There's something else," he said, "but I can't put my finger on it. When you first brought your young man in, he was a tad—ah—alarming."

"But you were not alarmed."

"No. I was not."

Her voice fell quieter. "Why do you help me?"

His smile was wry. "Can't deny you anything, girl. If that entails taking in hulking giants, then so be it."

"I was under the impression that civilians feared the unknown."

The old man shrugged, deceptively nonchalant. "I suppose what you're trying to tell me is that he isn't normal and neither are my actions towards his person. I should fear him, yes? Condemn him to the streets with you carting him on your back, I suppose."

"I did not ask for sarcasm."

"No, you did not." Something softened in that hawk countenance of his. "My dear girl, if I were concerned with reputation, appearance, and this ghastly society as a whole, I would've kicked you out ages ago. And yet here we are, talking while I try and convince you of my sincerity."

She stumbled to her feet, face stricken. "I have never doubted you!"

He sighed. Hands on his knees, he heaved himself up off the chair. "Calm down. Let's take a moment to reflect on the idiocy of your words. Did I ever say I was offended? I am old, girl. Your suspicions and distrust, however mild they are, are smart."

"I do trust you." Eyes gleaming, she tugged at his sleeve. "Please do not think otherwise."

They were of the same height, but her head was bowed. With another sigh, he lifted and rested a hand on her. The warmth of his hand seeped through her hair, and she felt comforted. She didn't care if she looked a child or that this intimate exchange should have been an awkward rarity.

After the events of the storm, everything had changed.

"I wonder, sometimes," he said, mussing her bangs a bit, letting his hand fall back to his side, "I wonder if I did right by you." Regret clung to his words.

"What...do you mean?"

He only smiled and said nothing.

A sliver of unease rose in her. She pulled away, voice firm. "Please tell me what you mean."

"I am getting old. I'll not live forever."

She stilled.

But he continued, shaking his head. "The world is cruel. I don't think you understand that. I may die today, I may die tomorrow, but the fact is you're not independent yet."

"I have been learning," she said, expression turning earnest.

"Just knowing the culture isn't good enough, girl. You tasted only a glimpse of what is to come. That boy in the back, the past you won't tell me...these are painful things, are they not? What will you do when it's time to let me go? How will you react?

"How will you live?"

--

What version of a lie was the truth? Was this the Jump City where people were happy, where every day brought new delights, all under the overwhelmed but mesmerized eyes of an unseen child? Where security had finally been provided, softly and gently as any comfortably worn coat...

Or was the real Jump City the one where people could die right before your eyes, where they were snatched from you at the moment of reunion? Where no one would help you because you were a freak and they let it be known?

She wanted to give into despair.

Jump was no longer the bright and happy place she'd pretended it to be. It was...dark. Gray. Irrevocable shades of gray. With unforgivable turbulent forces that knew she was there, forces that _wanted her out_. Surely, surely that was the only reason her friend was targeted. Dead. Or nearly.

This was illogical. How could this planet be so cruel? To take her friend away only after she'd found him?

Reason was not supposed to walk hand in hand with murder.

And it was murder, a death by her own hands. Inadvertently. If she hadn't been there, if she hadn't gone back to wait back at their shelter in the hopes that he would return—but by the time this thought had already formed, it was dispelled.

It wasn't her fault. It wasn't his, either. They had parted ways violently. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

It wasn't her fault. Not when she thought it right to wait for him. She would never blame herself for waiting for him. But it was her fault for trying. She drove him away, and then she waited for him to return with open arms? What was she expecting?

She shouldn't have ever come here, to Earth. Fleeing her fate, desperately shielding away from the truth—she'd been in denial. She'd willingly hid her eyes, let herself drown in oblivion, in friendship. It shouldn't hurt as much as this.

It hurt.

But to willing forget these short months, to forget him? Impossible. Ludicrous. It was a luxury she could never afford. Her life was changed. She never wanted it to—_unnecessary complications_—but she never wanted to go back. Not to before.

To forget _him_ was to willingly tear off her own limb. It was to cut out a part of herself. It was to wrench an organ from her belly and crush it underfoot. Her heart hurt, which was stupid to think once her body was considered. After only a few months on this planet was she able to adjust her breathing accordingly. She was, to all extents, a perfectly healthy human female. Like any other sentient being, she adapted to her surroundings and survived.

Tea helped soothe her raw pains in the beginning, but it was now habit to have a cup first thing upon awakening. She no longer had episodic flashbacks of when her throat burned with every word, so why did she still drink tea? Sentimentality of the action, she supposed. Would any wounded mammal turn away from an old comfort?

Reasons demanded that she drink tea because of its beneficial properties. But that would be lying; she knew full well why she kept intaking the curious substance.

She liked tea. It was as simple as that. Her heart was warmed and soothed from familiar old sensations, and she indulged in them with an enjoyment that was never obligation.

She liked tea. If she found out she could no longer drink that precious brew, she would actually _feel_ something about it. Disappointment, most likely. Maybe even irritation for when her cravings would starve for more. She'd feel all this and more. Much more.

To her mortification, she realized that she'd actually feel sad about it.

The heart was an organ. It did not indulge in insensible, flippant things. Flighty emotions had no bearings on it.

She did not believe in the most ridiculous obsession with love, that emotion novels so frequently dabbled in. She also didn't believe that she could feel _sad_ about a permanent lack of tea. It was...it was foolish. Illogical. Feel so strongly about tea? It didn't make any sense.

She'd gained an attachment.

The heart was a heart. It had no emotions. It wasn't a vague thing like courage or freedom. It was concrete, something out of the pages of a textbook. There was nothing extraordinary about it beyond its capability of keeping her alive.

Hurt wasn't something special at all. It was as familiar to her as her own two hands. Nothing at all extraordinary about an old, lingering emotion. Nothing at all.

She didn't feel so wretched she wanted to hurl. She didn't have any urgings to cry. Of course not.

It was all in her head.

Just like her now sullied home, she supposed, chest tight. If she opened her mouth, she feared something would come out—a mewl, a cry, _something_. The visual destruction before her could not only be taken in by her eyes; every part of her being wanted to protest, scream. This was her home and it was destroyed.

She could not find the silver lining.

She smelled the acrid scent of metal and garbage and gasoline, heard the dull groans of toppling, teetering cars. She tasted the bitter twang in the back of her throat as she raked her surroundings with despairing eyes. An oppressive sense of sure feeling settled over her, and a thought rooted in terrible clarity—that she could never return. That the fond junkyard of her memories was forever gone.

To the citizens of Jump City, people like her were subhuman. Homeless and poor. They did not consider her equal to them and never would, not when she mourned the loss of _garbage_. Not when it had been the home she'd wholeheartedly accepted, a shelter she was invited to by...

He'd felt so ashamed. Of the meager dwelling he offered her, his pathetic home. But it was not his place to feel shame. They should have turned to each other, smiled and laughed and...and...

They should have been happy just to live with each other. He'd offered, she'd accepted—what more was there to it than that? The days would have been hard, she knew, but they had each other. Didn't they?

_I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes._

The sodden paperback at her feet dredged up a memory. The girl slumped and clutched shaking arms around her waist. Defeated and not at all willing to fight against her mind, she let it come.

In her mind's eye she saw his stiff back, his haunched shoulders. She remembered his face—right before it turned away from her.

She remembered his words.

He had not smiled.

The most terrifying conversation she'd ever had was the day he'd left, when he hadn't smiled. When she'd driven him away.

"_That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody."_

Lifting her face to the skies, she breathed. In that moment, she imagined the scene as it should have been. See, the broken pick-up truck he'd turned on its side to act as a wall? The ragged blankets they'd scavenged in the city, and the cleverly hidden bottles of fresh water...?

Which probably had long been swept away by the flood.

Abruptly, her fantasy cracked. Her eyes opened.

She remembered.

_The dream had to end_. And right before her eyes a destroyed landscape of junk and metal and all things good appeared, materializing from the mists of her memory, crawling forth with its spindly claws that shocked her into wakefulness.

Because the world was cruel and Victor may as well be dead.

And...she was going to let it happen?

--

Her feet trudged through the sand and she didn't care as grit made its way into her shoes.

A breeze careened past her, kicking up her hair, but she was melancholy.

_I've been here before_, she thought absently. Despite murky waters and the darkening sky, she dipped a tentative foot into the water. The boot hardly did anything to insulate her. The lapping sensation was almost pleasant...until a particularly high roll of water choked up into the air and splashed at her. She jerked back as if stunned.

_Cold, cold_. Too cold! Almost stumbling in her haste, she backed away when she stopped. Surreptitious glances and suspicious squints, but no one was in her vicinity. She was safe, her privacy preserved. No one would be out on a muggy and potentially stormy night.

Despite herself, she flinched. Hold yourself together, she chided. Even though she said that, she could already feel herself beginning to succumb to distress...

All right, all right, this wasn't working. She inhaled deeply. Brine and salt assaulted her nose but not in a bad way. Still, she wrinkled it, wondering when she would get used to the smell of the sea.

But anything away from...from mechanical things, gasoline, the stinging fume of oil...this was good. The beach could not hurt her. This was a pleasant escape.

Could the weather be any more sullen?

Sarcasm. An uneasy tool, used more to cover up disquieting silence than a personality trait.

Why wasn't she focused? Her thoughts were all over the place. Think! What to do about...?

Falling back, she plopped herself onto scratchy ground. Occasional shimmers of water brushed her outstretched legs, but she wasn't worried about catching sickness. She was drawn to this place, she knew. She just didn't know why.

Gritting her teeth, she dug clawed fingers into the sand.

There was nothing she could do, after all!

Mind distant, she peered out across the sea, a depressing landscape detached from the port and harbor. No ships were in sight because she traveled far enough for them to be at her back. She acknowledged she'd found a spot unscathed by city sights, unclaimed by Jump.

Of course she hadn't been here before. Beaches looked similar to each other. It must be all this sand...

Remember. That beach from awhile ago?

She only remembered a distressed embarrassment, painful confusion, that had sent her skittering away from the crowds and crowds of people wanting to thank her, thank her for saving that little girl...

Healing. Absorbing. Taking on another person's pain, consuming it, drawing it away from her body...his body...

His body.

He must be in so much pain right now. But how could she know? He was..._offline_ or some other ridiculous notion that kept blinking on his monitor screen. How ridiculous earthen technology was! She thought she'd go mad from the constant blinking, frantic beeping that had sent her heart pulsing with panic...that arm of his took a day to settle down! She didn't know what it meant when his strange alert system calmed, but she remembered panicking when his arm finally _did_ become terribly quiet...

His arm?

Yes, his arm! The mechanical thing monitoring his heartbeat, such quiet thuds flickering in her ear, keeping her sane...

She checked it hourly. Her time on the beach was almost up.

No, not yet. Think. Think, what was it about his arm that...?

Her hands clenched into fists. She bit down hard on a cheek.

The answer, so teasing out of reach!

_Victor_, she thought, despairingly. _Victor must be in so much pain right now_...

Inconsequential. She was...it was masochistic to keep coming back to this line of thought! It wasn't as if she could play medic for him. He was half robotic, the alien half of his body in—incomprehensible to her! She couldn't do anything, could she? So stupid, so _powerless_...why did that man cruelly encase her friend in metal? How could that man, so prevalent and strong in her friend's thoughts, think to _do_ this horrible thing in exchange for conserving a life? Victor's life? Her friend, hurt and angry, filled with terrible, awesome grief and hatred, was better off dead!

She retched suddenly, body physically heaving over with the motion. No. No, no, Victor! _Victor...!_

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry!_ she thought, unable to tamp down on the bubbling hysteria in her. _Don't die. Don't let my careless words condemn you!_

She had to see him. Now. She had to see if he was okay.

"No," she whimpered, stricken. "He's not okay...he was never okay. From the day we met he was never okay..."

Her curse. Her birthright. Her demonic fate that corrupted every loved one beside her.

Not true..._not true_...!

--

She tripped past a column of books and shoved it away. Running forth on tatty, dirty boots, she slid into the enclave that held him. The floor was matted with dust and the sand that clung to her shoes, but she didn't care.

She collapsed before him, to her knees, to his prone form, and gasped, hard, but her eyes were aglow, feverish. There was a terrible, unholy fervor alight in her expression that would had sent any passerby into heart palpitations. Luckily, the night was dark—as dark as her thoughts were, mad as she was with grief. Crazed, even.

Already, she was thinking he was dead. Her only friend.

What had she been doing all this time? Pining! Despairing! Weak, useless, _unworthy. _She was the daughter of the Terrible One, was she not? Why was she weak? Nothing could be done? Useless spawn! Weakling girl! Deserving of the fate pressed onto her, she couldn't even save a loved one...!

And with these overwhelming feelings in her heart, these spiteful thoughts, she laid a hand upon the gaping cavity of his chest. And the other?

She rested upon his mind.

_...on't...don...'t..do...**ra**...**vEN**!_

--

They worked well together, she thought proudly. They kept each other accountable, looked out for one another's backs. When she left for supplies, with the money she'd earned from that quaint, little shop, she was able to bring back food. And when he scavenged in the city, she stayed home to keep watch.

Their junkyard, which she now wholly considered theirs, was their home. It didn't matter if she lived in a perpetual state of filth and trash—his home was her home. Wherever he was was her home. _He_...was home. She felt just like that.

When she looked up into that smiling countenance, she felt whole.

They enjoyed their companionable silences. With no electricity for the appliances and technology that were already broken from the start, they only had each other. Words weren't needed to convey what they thought, what they felt. They just _knew_.

They only had each other.

"Will this last?" she said at last, hopeful. And the silence was broken.

He paused. Half smiling, really only just a lilt to the corner of his mouth, he laid a hand upon her head and mussed her bangs. But his eyes were shuttered, although he did not let her see.

"Sure, kid. This'll last."

Her answering smile was brilliant.

* * *

Two plot points I gotta point out. One, the depth/kind of Raven's feelings for Victor, inspired a lot by J.D. Salinger's _The Catcher in the Rye._ _Dracula_ is also briefly quoted. Obviously, books are doing a good job in shaping her, influencing her to think in a certain way.

The second is her development from passive aggressive to action. This is important because Raven is extremely passive, preferring to drift off in despairing musings than blatantly face reality, but here she acts. Quite forcefully. In the series, she's a calm, levelheaded person, a thinker, but does not hesitate for a moment to help her friends. Even when there's 'no hope' she takes action to save them. I tried to show the beginnings of this trait while keeping the impetus somewhat impure.

Of course, there are exceptions. In the 4th season finale, Raven reverts back to her passive, submissive role in the doom and gloom of Armageddon. I really like this dueled nature of hers. Trigon brings the most interesting things out of her.


End file.
